Redemption
by officialremedyx
Summary: A man winds up in a world of talking animals for no understandable reason. His old skills are put to good use as his new found friends train him to become a kung fu warrior. But what will happen when his past begins to rear its ugly head?
1. Chapter 1

His vision was a little hazy, but the pain was much more prominent than anything. It felt as if he had been stabbed in the back multiple times before being beat over the head with a golf club. He reached for his throbbing head and groaned slightly which seemed to alert something in the room. He could make out five bodies through his blurred vision but his eyes were still adjusting and couldn't see much more than that.

He seemed to be lying on some sort of flat lawn chair. The uncomfortable weave on his sore back made that very apparent to him. The room was humid, but the gentle flow of cool air made it seem as if the walls were paper thin.

As his vision adjusted even more he could see the five bodies in front of him take form. He immediately took note of the massive body difference between each of the figures. One of them was as big as a bear while another looked as skinny as a pole. He even noticed another figure that seemed to be sitting on the bear figure's shoulder that was roughly the size of his hand.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus more intently on these strange figures. His body froze once his sight had fully cleared. The figures were not people but mere animals glaring directly at him. The aggregation of animals seemed almost unbelievable. There was a tiger, a panda, a snake, a monkey, a large bird of some sort, and a bug all focusing their attention on him. His instincts kicked in and he stilled his body, his initial thought being that they would not attack him if he did not put up a fight. His eyes darted between each creature as they all just raised their brow in confusion at him.

His eyes froze along with his body this time. He had never seen an animal do something like that. That's when he began to notice that these were not normal animals; there was something about them that made them seem almost amiable. However, their nearly affable demeanors did not stop him from keeping a stolid being.

Silence began to overcome the room and even the soft blow of wind could not diffuse the gauche predicament. Eyes began to flicker around the room before they all seemed to rest on the panda.

A gentle clearing of the throat was made clear before a voice was heard. This voice did not come from the man laying on the lawn chair either.

"Um… What's up?" The panda spoke with an obvious male tone. "I'm Po, and what's your name?"

"Way to be formal Po," the male bird rolled his eyes at the panda as he spoke.

"At least I'm trying," it retorted.

"Enough you two!" The snake interrupted her feminine voice cutting through the male bickering. "This isn't getting us anywhere!"

"S-stop doing that!" The boisterous voice of the man said, the sudden outburst making everybody jump

"Doing what?" The panda or Po had replied.

"Talking! Y-you're not s-supposed to be able to d-do that!"

This just made everybody in the room more confused.

"Excuse me?" The mantis, which he understood to be male, jutted in.

The man began to turn his body in an attempt to climb off the reclined chair while shouting, "I want to leave! I want to get out of here! Let me leave!"

"Oh, no you don't!" The tiger shot an arm out in his direction and forced his back into the chair. "You aren't going anywhere until we get some answers!"

Her forceful action and domineering female voice caused him to freeze up again and just nod his head in acceptance of defeat.

"Tigress!" The snake shouted at the tiger while attempting to pry her arm from his body. "You're just scaring him! Let him be!"

The tiger retracted her arm with an upset look. The situation began to grow more and more uncomfortable by the second. Another clearing of the throat was heard before the snake began to speak.

"I'm sorry about all this; let's start from the beginning. I'm Viper, this is Tigress, this is Mantis, that's Crane, that's Monkey, and this is Po." She pointed to each member in the room respectively. The names were all stereotypical except Po; he seemed to be the only one with an out of place name.

"Oh… Uhm… Hello…" He muttered as his eyes darted everywhere trying to avoid eye contact with any of them. "I'm Aden. Aden Vavrik."

"Aden? That's a pretty cool name. Don't know anybody with that name around here," Mantis added.

"Uhm… Thank you?" He was so flustered, but his speech was beginning to return.

"Now that you've calmed down a bit, what are you and how did you get here?" Viper queried.

"I'm a human. Do you not have those here?"

They all glanced at each other and shook their heads.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Aden added as his head rested on the back of the chair.

"How did you fall from the sky though?"


	2. Chapter 2

His head rose slowly after hearing this. He glared at the person who had asked such a bizarre question with a raised brow. The panda rubbed his paws together and glanced around the room as if some sort of nervous twitch.

"Something I said?" He eventually questioned.

"Fell from the sky?" Aden's returned question was asked so clearly it was as if he forgot he was speaking to anthropomorphic creature.

"Uh… Yeah, don't you remember?"

"Of course he doesn't remember you idiot!" Mantis interjected with a tiny claw plastered to his forehead. "We found him unconscious!"

"Well he could have been awake as he was falling!" Po returned.

"I don't remember anything," Aden spoke up. "I just remember going to… work, and then I woke up here."

"Do you work anywhere around here?" Viper chimed in.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Aden responded. "This place doesn't look anything like New York City."

They all looked at each other with quizzical looks before Po spoke up. "I don't think New York City is anywhere in China."

Aden's body flung up in an instant, and with a barreling voice that could knock over buildings shouted, "China!?"

Everyone took a step back at his outburst. His body fought through the pain as he tried to sit up completely. He definitely needed more rest, but his shocked mind wouldn't let him lay down anymore.

"No! Don't get up!" Viper alerted. "You're body is still healing!"

"I'll take care of this," Tigress finally spoke in a monotone.

She took a step forward before shooting her right arm directly at his chest with the intention of shoving him back into his laying position. Aden's instincts immediately intervened as his left arm shot up instantaneously blocking her paw from reaching his chest. The pain was unbelievable; his arm felt like it was going to fall right off.

Nobody seemed to notice his grimace from the pain though; they were all too wide eyed at his movement. Tigress hadn't even budged after her arm had been stopped mid punch.

"How… How did you move so fast?!" Monkey was the first to ask.

"Hmm? Ahhhh!" Tigress eventually made her move and used her other arm to push him back onto the flat chair and make his arm release hers; he let out a disgruntled yell as his back made contact. She was not pleased.

"That was totally awesome!" Po nearly jumped he was so excited. "You totally just deflected a punch from Master Tigress! Do you know how cool that is?!"

"Do you know Kung Fu?" Mantis asked.

"No…" He was able to squeak out through the pain in his arm and back.

"You should train with us! You could be part of the Furious Five!" Po was extremely excited now.

"Po!" Tigress burst out. "You can't just trust something that fell from the sky. Master Shifu doesn't even know he's here right now."

"Tigress, lighten up," Mantis interjected. "He doesn't seem like a bad guy."

Tigress just growled at his response and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on the way out.

"She's right though," Viper intervened. "Master Shifu hasn't even been alerted that we brought him into the Jade Palace, and I don't think he is going to take this lightly."

Po let out an exasperated sigh. "Are you a fighter at all?" He asked.

"No. I don't know any form of martial arts." He replied.

"Does that mean you wouldn't be able to block another punch if somebody threw one at you?"

"What do you mea- OW!"

A fuzzy fist was thrust at his shoulder, making impact with a solid _smack _sound. This wasn't a punch you would give your best friend when you're joking around either. The panda may look like his punches would feel like pillows, but Aden can assure you they do not.

"Po!" Viper shouted. "What are you doing?!"

"I was just testing if he would stop my punch!" He replied.

"While he is still healing?!"

Aden had his unharmed arm grasping his shoulder as he writhed back and forth muttering, "son of a bitch!" under his breath. He hunched himself over so he was in the fetal position and lay down on his side. The constant bickering between the group and the pain in his entire body (but mostly his arm) was too much and he finally snapped.

"Leave me alone!" He finally released. The bickering instantly ceased.

Aden was had began to shiver as he was overcome with fear, confusion, sadness, and anger. He had nowhere to go, he didn't know anybody, and he didn't even seem to be in the same universe. These 'people' didn't seem to want to hurt him, but he was so confused that he took his anger and confusion out on them.

"I just want to be left alone," he added.

"Ok, we'll give you some privacy," Viper concluded as she slithered out of the room with the rest of the group behind her.

"Sorry," was the finally word uttered as Po exited last.

His shivering began to slow as his emotions settled. He let time pass by and felt his body slowly relax until he fell into a thoughtless sleep.

**Well hai. So I didn't make any comments on the first chapter but I really hope everybody enjoyed it! I just decided to make a new story since I'm trying to improve my writing and vocabulary. I used to write MLP fanfiction but my writing was so poor back then that I stopped.**

**What I really want is for people to review my work. "This is so awesome!" comments are nice now and then but I truly want somebody to give me meaningful constructive criticism so I may improve my writing style. **

**I hope you all enjoy my story and please leave a review!**

**-Julian**

**P.S. send me a PM if you wanna add me on steam :D**


	3. Chapter 3

Aden awoke peacefully. He yawned and stretched his arms, but immediately retracted them when he felt the pain return. He was still hurt but it wasn't as bad as before. He opened his eyes and gazed around the cultural room. An exasperated sigh was released as he lay back down. He was much calmer but still incredibly uncomfortable.

"Hey."

He quickly turned his head to see where the voice came from. The snake, err Viper, was standing in the doorway.

"Uh, hey," he returned.

Viper could sense how uncomfortable he was and immediately spoke up again.

"Listen, we know you've been through a lot and we are extremely sorry about bombarding you with questions. We are just as confused as you, but I can definitely see how you're in a much worse predicament."

Aden's facial expression drooped.

"I'm sorry!" She chimed in with a worried look plastered on her face. "I didn't mean for it to sound like that! I'm so sorry for making you feel bad!"

This is where Aden finally relaxed. This wasn't a snake he was talking to; there was no way of that. He was listening to raw emotion poor from the serpent's mouth. Worry, concern, and care were all easily understood.

"Don't be sorry," he replied. "You were only trying to help. I'm sorry for my outbursts earlier; I was confused and scared."

Viper allowed a soft smile to creep its way onto her face.

"No worries. Feeling any better?"

"uhm… The pain has lessened, but I don't think I can move very fast without causing further injuries."

"That's good to hear! Do you think you have the strength to walk?"

Without responding Aden shifted and put his feet on the ground. He applied small amounts of pressure and hoisted himself up making sure he wouldn't fall. When he was standing completely upright and stable he gave her a nod. She gave a gleaming smile and flicked her tail in a gesture for him to follow.

"Come on, I'll show you where to go."

He slowly made his way out of the room and followed her down hall. He admired all of the cultural architecture and reminisced about the times when he fantasized about travelling the world.

A gentle walk down the hall eventually led to a door which small talk emanated from. He noticed the lack of a doorknob (which seemed to be a common theme in this building), slid the door open, and stood in the doorway. The conversations began to slow as five sets of eyes gazed at him.

"Hey, look who's up!" Mantis

Aden stood in the doorway with a nervous look on his face. The group could Aden's features much more clearly now that he was standing up and in much brighter light. He was almost six feet tall, maybe a few inches shy and not much taller than tigress. His hair was brown, curly, and seemed to flow to one side of his head. He was 19 years old but had a baby face and no facial hair. The one thing that took most of them by surprise was how skinny he was. This was much more visible as he slowly made his way to the table and took off the baggy sweatshirt he had arrived in.

He placed the sweatshirt of the chair and sat down with a plain white t-shirt on. Everybody had a confused look on their face except Tigress who seemed to just be annoyed and tried to focus on anything but him.

"Wow," Po chimed in. "I didn't think somebody as lanky as you would be able to block an attack from Tigress."

Aden was used to the comments about how skinny he was so it didn't bother him in the slightest. He did begin to feel uncomfortable when everybody would not avert their gaze from him.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Uhm… May I have something to eat?"

Po immediately snapped out of his gaze and shook his head slightly as if he had blanked out for a minute.

"I'm sorry!" He declared as he stood up from his seat. "Let me get you some soup!"

"We're really sorry about staring," Monkey added. "We just aren't used to anything like you."

"I know what you mean…" Aden sarcastically replied.

By now Po had returned to the table with a steaming bowl of soup. The aroma was absolutely intoxicating; Aden took a huge whiff before even thinking of picking up a spoon. He slowly dipped it into the bowl and brought a spoonful up to his mouth gently letting the fluid glide down his throat. A satisfied moan was released as he sat back in his chair and admired the flavor.

"This… This is fantastic! I've never had anything like this!" Aden let Po know in a tone that almost masked his uneasy feeling about his entire situation upon arriving.

"Thanks," he returned. "I used to work in a noodle shop before I became the Dragon Warrior."

Aden raised his brow at this. "Dragon Warrior?"

"Oh, I was chosen by Master Oogway, the wisest and coolest guy I ever knew, to fight evil basically."

Aden's brow rose even higher at this. "A panda?"

"Looks can be deceiving; I've kicked every bad guy's butt in the Valley!"

"Way to stay modest Po," Mantis sarcastically added.

Aden couldn't help but chuckle at Po's jovial nature. He seems excited about everything and always willing to help. He deemed Viper to be the wise, fun-loving one of the group and Mantis to be the sarcastic witty one. Monkey didn't say much but Aden knew that he meant well. The only one that confused him was Tigress. She barely looked at him but when she did it was always with an upset glare. Considering he has no idea how he got here and unaware of his surroundings, staying on good terms with everybody was his best bet.

"That's the first smile I've seen from you," Viper responded to his chuckle. "I hope you're feeling better?"

"A little," he replied. "Just confused is all."

"Don't worry Aden," Po added. "We know you're going to get through this. Just give it some time, and hey, Master Shifu could probably help you out."

"Help with what exactly?"

Everybody turned to see a little red panda standing in the doorway.

**So this is chapter 3. I hope you guys enjoyed this and pleeeeeease leave a review. I would really like to know how people feel about this story. If anybody hadn't noticed already, I don't have a regular update schedule and probably won't. My schedule isn't extremely busy, but I don't need an update schedule to stress me out any more than I am.**

**As always, please favorite, leave a review, and thanks for reading!**

**Don't forget to PM me if you wanna add me on steam :D**

**-Julian**


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